


Unhappy Birthday

by sapphire2309



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Preseries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2018-03-19 02:35:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3593121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire2309/pseuds/sapphire2309
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal's not having a very happy birthday at the Burke's. (prompt)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unhappy Birthday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel/gifts).



> Written for a Summary Prompts meme at my LJ.

This was decidedly *not* how he expected his birthday to go. 

Neal didn't have any grand plans, but he thought a glass of chilled wine, some decent oysters and an evening of planning ridiculously improbable heists with Mozzie would make a pretty good day.

His plans for the day didn't make a difference, because at night (when he expected to be fast asleep, one arm around Kate, the sheets tangled around their legs), he was creeping through the cozy little townhouse that belonged to Burke the Jerk who, incidentally, wanted his ass in prison.

He liked to think of himself as daring. Ballsy, even. But this was scaring the shit out of him.

He was positive that either Burke or his wife was right behind him. Footsteps had followed him around at a distance ever since he'd stepped into the house.

He pushed the thought out of mind and carefully searched every box in their attic, looking for what Burke the Jerk called the 'Caffrey' box. He'd searched seventeen so far, and had found Christmas decorations, piles of anniversary and birthday cards (oddly, the ones he had sent weren't in those boxes) and crazy amounts of photographs. 

No Caffrey box. 

He sstopped searching the eighteenth box suddenly when a razor sharp image flickered at the forefront of his mind.

The coffee table, with a few files on it, and a box tucked underneath.

He wanted to yell, 'What took so goddamned long?' Instead, he turned and headed out, his leg colliding with something warm on the way.

Wait - what?

He turned, eyes half closed, guilty wince on his face, to hear a soft bark. A stately Labrador immediately threw himself at Neal.

Thankfully, the big yellow animal saw him as a friend and hadn't warned anyone with his considerable lung power. 

"Hey buddy," he whispered and gave the dog his obligatory scratch on the head. "What say you go to sleep now, huh?"

The dog obediently turned tail and headed down the stairs.

So Burke the Jerk wasn't such a big jerk after all, he thought as the dog wagged its tail at him. He couldn't be. Jerks didn't take the time to feed a dog, walk it, and scoop its poop.

He shadowed the dog down the stairs. The dog headed to the kitchen, he went to the coffee table.

A few minutes of rifling thorough the box convinced Neal that Peter only had what he wanted him to have. Cards, notes on hotel stationery, what he could only assume was recordings of late night phone calls. Peter had even kept flyers and tourist information on the places he'd let himself be seen in.

Also, he was apparently referring to Burke the Jerk as Peter now.

He shrugged, invisible in the night, and made his way out of the house through the same window he'd cracked to get in. 

Maybe it wasn't such a bad birthday after all.


End file.
